Former PM Barak reenters politics, challenges center-left leaders

Two bad omens for the Blue and White party in one day: the first, when former Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced June 26 that he is establishing a new left-wing party; the second, when Nitzan Horowitz won the primaries June 27 to lead the Meretz Party.

At age 77, at an improvised and surprising press conference, Barak burst back into active political life and disrupted the center-left camp. Barak hit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mercilessly, armed with sharp and aggressive messages on the urgency of returning the country to sanity and the necessity of saving the Zionist enterprise from Netanyahu’s corrupt regime. The immediate victim of his stirring display was chairman of the Blue and White party, Benny Gantz. Without any special effort, without a promoter or media advisers, Barak showed exactly what Gantz lacks: a killer instinct.

Strangely, Barak challenged Gantz more than he did Netanyahu, since the immediate significance of establishing a new left-wing party is a split in the vote and a shift of the electorate from Blue and White to Barak. Barak’s new party still doesn’t have a name, but it has a mission: taking down Netanyahu. Barak’s No. 2 is the former deputy chief of staff, Gen. (Res.) Yair Golan, which puts the new party in the category of a generals’ party, alongside Blue and White. Three of Blue and White’s senior members — Gantz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi — are former generals.

Anyone who listened to Barak’s press conference and his many interviews afterward, speaking of alliances in the center-left bloc, understands that he has identified his last chance to return to the prime minister’s office. Barak believes that if he concentrates enough forces around him, he could overtake Gantz and turn into the leading candidate in the bloc opposing Netanyahu. It sounds detached from the current political reality, but Barak is known for his roundabout plans.